Introducing Serverm07 - Visualising Ranges in NLHE

Description

Give a warm welcome to Serverm07 as he brings us his first video on playing from the blinds. In this replayer video he talks about a number of spots in which he was playing from the blinds and discusses his thoughts

Hey,
question from about the first hand:
1. You put villain on sets and draws
and then decide to raise? Doesn't make much sense for me.
2. Do you really raise all sets? They don't have strong draw anyway, why raise?
3. Also you say when you raise OTF you make villain in mp fold TT+. Yeah nice but will you ever get action from anything but another set??

General observation: I don't understand why you guys put such hands as that last hand in a 3bet pot where you have basically nuts against fish. Everyone knows how to play
it, waste of time.

1) By having a raising range on the flop it allows me to raise bluffs that I would otherwise be forced to fold, so it lets me have a wider flop continuation range.
So if I raised all sets, that would be 9 combos so I can raise 18 combos as bluffs.
87s=3 combos, 86s=3 combos, 76=4 combos, A3s=3 combos, 56s=4 combos
A8s=1 combo
My call range would look like this:
97s+, TJ and TQ (26 combos with TQ) if I thought it was good enough to call. If I thought TQ wasn't good enough to call then I would put it in my raise range and get rid of my worst raising hands because I want the most equity.

2) So going off question number one, you might say why raise all sets, your calling range is too weak. So then we can decide ok we will only raise 88/33. Now we have only 6 value combos so we have to get rid of bluffs and only have 12 if we are trying to play near "optimal" so then our range is stronger on turns.

3) I think MP's range for continuing here should be like 88/99/KK/AA and maybe TJs can be justified if he has a read about sb not reraising here.
If we call there would be 24+14.86+14.86=53.72 in the pot and he has to call 14.86 into a pot of 68.58, now he has a profitable call with TT+, TJ, and just gets to continue wider. I do think if MP overcalls vs our raise then his range is quite strong and I would approach turns cautiously.

@General Observation: I'm not really trying to demonstrate how to play nuts but rather think about my range try to give another player a range and try to play my range as optimally as possible.
The last hand was in order to demonstrate that KT is at the bottom of my value range and to make you guys think how you would play your 3bet range. For example I think AK would be a mistake to shove river for value because he wouldn't call wide enough to make it good.

On another note, I could have had sets in all the previous hands, and then your comment might as well be "Cool this guy knows how to play sets", But what I'm trying to accomplish is a discussion of ranges, what is our range preflop, how should we create a continuing range postflop, talk about sizing, and anything related to that.

All of these hands are real so I tried to talk about how I would play my range and how I decided to play the exact hand I had at the time, my sizing, reads and why I thought it was good.

@Xessi
Take a look at my post above and feel free to ask more specific questions. But as I mentioned in order to be able to continue wider and get value from SB.

If we were to play a call only on the flop meaning we call with our continuing range, I think it would be a mistake to call A3s for example so I would have to fold it, meaning my continuing range would be smaller and I win the pot less often.

Of course we could play exploitable and only raise bluffs but I try to be somewhat balanced.

In hand #1 I had T9s which is near the bottom of my calling range, 97s is the worst one I would call there, I personally would not call 96s and some better players might call wider than I do so they would have a wider range post and pick their hands differently than I am.
I decided in a vacuum it was better to raise because I didn't expect him to 3bet bluff at that particular time and if I called the flop, my range would be somewhat capped because MP is not a fish so I would be mostly raising sets but I think its good to flat sets some % of the time to protect our flatting range.

"meaning my continuing range would be smaller and I win the pot less often"

lol wider continuing range doesnt mean we win pot more often (or win more money wich is actualy our goal). suppose we are maniac and shove 100% of our preflop range. this is obvious exaggeration but it makes the point. so the question is if we are actualy making any money by raising A3s or whatever.

I've always wondered why people can't ask questions in a civil and mannered way but instead feel like taking the piss usually about someone that plays several limits above them.
Anyways, good video with solid content severm07.

When I'm saying my continuing range be as wide as possible, I'm obviously talking about only continuing with what I consider +EV raising and calling ranges.

Now if you want to discuss on what hands to pick and why then I would be happy to.

About A3, since the small blind is fairly unlikely to have 33 in his range, it's probably not as important to have a 3 blocker but more important to have an 8 blocker.

So then it depends on how you want to approach the spot in terms of raising for value, and after that you can come up with your bluff raising range and pick out the best hands to bluff with depending on how wide you flat pre. Everyone has different ranges for flatting pre but this should give you the idea of how to pick your hands. If we pick 67s, and are flatting all TQ combos offsuit and suited and decide they are not strong enough to call with, that's enough bluff combos already. However I do think flatting some QTs is fine so I would include some 8x into my raising range with backdoor flush draw and fold everything else so then in that sense A3s should also be a fold because we don't want our bluffing to get out of hand.

well first of all i meant no offense and i do not think or presume you are dumd and propose to just make ranges wider :) so if line has biggest +ev we take it whether it widens our ranges or not.

now, i'd prefer not to discuss ranges but to hear you thoughts (considering your superiority :)) on it and starting with how you want to approach the spot in terms of raising for value because i think #3 Xessi brought up pretty good point - why do we have to raise our sets in hand1? board is pretty dry and opp's ranges way behind our sets and they can't continue often vs our raise so why not slow play all nuts in the first place? especially if you think pfr will fold overpairs AND we might induce him to raise as a bluff?

hello serverm07, a more theoretical question: how did you choose the ratio of bluff to value hands in the first hand or in general? i mean you say when you raise you want to have 33% value 67% blluff? if the villain re-raises you as a bluff, if you fold around 50-55%, then he can make a profit with his bluffs so then you, in order not to be exploitable you should fold no more then 50%. this could mean that you either should have a bluff-value ratio of 50-50 or that you have a 4bet(shove) range on flop of value and semibluff (33% of that 67% bluff).
If you try to use an exploitable strategy, you can at first only raise bluffs on flop, and only call with sets, until sombody sees you at showdown, after wich you can only raise sets on flop. what are your thoughts on that? nice video

As for your question, now I'm not saying we should try to play GTO but when I analyze hands in the hand evaluation sub-forum, I'm always
suggesting that off the tables we work on what we think are "optimal ranges" and on the table deviate from that based on reads. I will be honest, I don't claim to be a GTO expert or a math expert that is capable of explaining exactly how these ratios are exactly figured out. The 2:1 Ratio of bluffs:value
on the flop has been derived by and is agreed by many regs to be +EV and an "optimal" starting point. Now I'm not saying just say okay and use the ratio without understanding it, I'm just saying I'm not the guy that is capable of explaining the highly advanced math or theory. These bluff:value ratios as you now are derived from calculating risk vs reward, however on the flop there are two more streets to be played, our bluffs have equity and equities change from street to street, and on top of all of that we have to take into account that there is money left to be played for (implied odds).

As for this particular hand, on the flop like I mentioned I think it's correct for us to raise 33+ for value, but for him it would be incorrect to reraise 33 and it's only a bluff catcher, I think from GTO point of view he should only be able to reraise 88 and 99 for value but that's a whole another topic. In poker there are limited amount of cards available and we get to see what we have which reduces what he can have (blockers), plus we have to think about range protection and slow playing in order to get more money.

My personal approach to this spot, board is 8s 9c 3h, would be as follows, Raise 33 always, because I think it's more +EV to raise now while our equity vs his range is so great and if we slow play, his range and mp's range combined are going to ruin 33 on a lot of turns so we would lose value on turns, 88 mainly raise but slow play some, and 99 I would be slow playing a decent amount of the time since our equity won't drastically change on most turns. As for bluffs, I would be picking from 67s (always), because if he reraises too small then I can continue with a call. TQ except TQss TQcc TQhh(also pretty much always)
8xss 8xcc 8xhh (typically yes but depends on table dynamics)..

I personally like to refer to this as a discussion, as a coach I feel like it's my duty to share my knowledge with you on how to make educated decisions so I don't want you guys to think ok I have to do X, because I want you guys to be able to make your own decisions on the table with the information you have. I think each
spot is unique and different and optimal decision in one spot will not be the same as another. I think on the sites + the stakes I play regs tend to play a bit weaker in general, meaning I don't really expect them to bluff me enough or call me down enough to punish my range that's skewed towards bluffs, but I do try to be somewhat "balanced" and only deviate a little from what I think is an optimal range so my frequencies don't get out of line.
And I'm also using gameflow and general reads on how I feel the other player will react to make decisions on a particular hand. That's why I raised the T9 from the hand
in the video because I thought it was the best in a vacuum because it's near bottom of my calling range.

Thanks, I do agree that I should use some kind of a tool to help visualisize things and will be
implemented into future videos. Thank you for feedback.

@all
I ask you guys to please not take stabs at each other here and keep the discussions to a mature level and be respectful to each other.
That's at least what my boss tells me to do, if I had the choice I would be calling you all awful and challenging you to hu, I kid, I kid.

I think I answered all the questions that were brought up in my last two posts. I'm sorry the posts got a little out of hand because I didn't
know how detailed my answer should be so I tried pretty hard to make it as detailed as possible so it was pretty clear. Please do continue the feedback
because it will help me produce better videos and be able to provide better answers.

The way you think was clear and consistent but the hand selection was poor imo. Just very std spots and hands. I'm sure you could have spent a little more time picking the hands and this would have been a top notch video.

Like I just tried to pick some hands from the blinds, some multi way pots, some vs early position, some vs late positon steals. And then I tried to talk about how I would play my range in that spot but I should have used some visual aids for sure.

Could you guys be a little more specific on what you want for the next vid.

ie Play from the blinds on low boards vs btn OOP or something like that.

Hi, I would check both a Q and J, I would be leaning towards fold if he bet because I expect his KQ/KJ type stuff to have hit a straight or two pair. I don't know how loose he calls on the turn with certainty or how thinly he will value bet but I think the best play is to just fold, since I don't have a read that he gets out of line.

I'm actually currently working on few new vids and just put up a thread in general poker looking for any interesting/tough hhs that I could use in my video.

i asked you above (#13) where did the bluff-value ratio of 2 to 1 on the flop come from, and you were not very sure of the math behind it. recently i realised where that comes from. let's suppose we 3 barel a fixed procentage of the pot on all 3 streets so that on the river it remains a 1 pot sized bet. so on the river if the villain calls with a bluffcatcher he should be good 33% of the time because of the odds. than means that we should have 67% value and 33% bluffs so that villain would be indifferent to folding or calling. On the turn, to not be exploitable we should have also 67%value and 33% bluff, where value means hands that we would continue to bet on river. that means that the pure value hands should represent 0.67x0.67=0.45 (aprox) of the turn range. if we consider all 3 streets, the river pure value range should represent 0.67x0.67x0.67=0.30 of that flop betting range which is aproximatly 1 out of 3. So to conclude, when we bet on the flop the villain can call if he can be good at least 33% of the time, so he calls and 33% of the time we let go on turn so he can take his flop investment back, but 67% of the time we bet again. He calls again and 33% of the time we let go on river and he can take back his turn investment, but the rest of 67% we bet again and he has a decision for his ramining stack. if he calls 33% of the time will win and 67% he will lose. But this case dont takes into account that fact the the board changes on every street so the value range is continually changing which is harder for the one calling.